French-Canadian drama 'Nuit # 1' is more than the sum of its parts

On the surface, "Nuit #1," Quebec writer/ director Anne Imond's impressive first feature, plays almost like a parody of an art-house film: It is in French, features explicit sex and is built around two beautifully dissolute people in a grungy little room talking -- and making love.

Dig a little deeper and, thanks to strong performances by Dimitri Storoge and Catherine de Lian, as well as Imond's soul-baring script, "Nuit #1" is more than the sum of its parts.

Nikolai (Storoge) and Clara (de Lian) meet in a Montreal dance club and head back to his place. She's intent on doing the walk of shame afterward, but he gets her to stay, and what was a one-night stand turns into a marathon session of confessions and accusations.

While that might sound like the stuff of soap opera, it's handled here not with histrionics but with the low-level intensity of real life. It all makes Imond's film radiantly, if often depressingly, alive.

Note: This review was written by Cary Darling of the McClatchy News Service